Pandemic preparedness

Category archives for Pandemic preparedness

What are we to make of the swine flu pandemic? The only thing I feel confident about is that it will be some time before we really know. A great deal of data and experience was gained in the year since the pandemic H1N1 took everyone by surprise but it will be a while before…

The Icelandic volcanic eruption is still causing havoc in Europe with ripple effects elsewhere as people and planes are grounded for travel in or out of much of northern Europe. Pressure from the traveling public, air carriers and business is mounting to let passenger and cargo planes fly again. What’s changed? Not much. There’s about…

This week Canadian public health researchers published the long awaited paper on possible association between vaccination for seasonal influenza the previous flu season and risk of having a medically diagnosed infection with pandemic influenza during the first wave of infections (April to July) just as that season was ending. When preliminary results were first announced…

Dear influenza virus: You owe the Council of Europe and a number of others an apology. They are angry — and rightly so — that you didn’t kill many more people and wreak havoc in every country on the globe. You could have. Other influenza viruses killed a lot of people, especially when there was…

Better late than never. When the Bush administration proposed sweeping airport quarantine rules in 2005, even those of us most concerned about avian influenza thought it was a fruitless policy on scientific grounds, not to mention issues of civili liberties and economics. The airlines hated it, too:

The AMA just took over a journal called Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness. In fact they proudly announced they were the exclusive publisher and distributor of the journal, formerly published by Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins. I wouldn’t even know about it except it was in connection with a press release of an article likely…

A day or two after CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWR) released a report about risks to pregnant women from pandemic 2009 flu, CDC held a suddenly announced press briefing about the current H1N1 situation (I listened in but a transcript should be up on the site by the time you read this; check…

We continue to learn a great deal about influenza infection as researchers harvest information from the recent swine flu pandemic. The pork producers don’t like to call it “swine flu” but it may well be that its long sojourn in that animal since 1918 (did we give Spanish flu to pigs or did pigs give…

We are now almost through the period considered to be the traditional flu season (to the end of March in the temperate northern hemisphere) and so far the amount of documented influenza infection is at a relatively low normal level and pneumonia and influenza deaths are about usual for this time of year. Said another…